@bloodymabel : ‘i just want you to know that this is really nice’
The night had been … what it had been. A night to be talked about, certainly. And remembered. He knows he should be feeling something. Not to say that he isn’t feeling anything, he just knows that it’s not the right, human, decent thing to feel. A man had died, twice, and the most raucous thought crossing his mind is will my name make it on the papers when they print about this tomorrow?
As the three of them rummage around his apartment, he tells himself that anticipation could be a way to cope with the shock. They’ll get interviewed about it; they have to. Legally and show-business-ly. How far could he stretch that actor-director bond? Ben wouldn’t be around to contradict him.
They could’ve talked on the phone for hours, him being the gentlest mentor of a lost artist striving for his first true raw performance. They could’ve talked the greats together, Ben’s compliments and his placing him, Oliver Putnam, up there with them being so humbling.
Mabel and Charles chatter about the more … haunting implications of the whole thing. Podcasting about it again seems like a given, and for once he's glad not to feel like the sole driving force behind that production. Don’t get him wrong, it’ll be a great addition to what he will have going on … and he’ll have a lot going on. Would a documentary on the play’s continued production, as a means to honor its former star, be way too much?
Charles leaves eventually (old man!), and being left alone with her makes him realize Mabel might not exactly be feeling the right thing, either. Her intense, Nancy Drew persona is one of the many great things about her, but even he can admit she’s immersing herself far too intensely, far too soon. It’d be less worrying if they were already at the point in the investigation where things get juicy, but …
He doesn’t know how to be comforting. He’s usually comforted. The best thing he can do is pick up one of those tiny boxes of apple juice (who knows where it came from, or how long it’d been there) and offer it to her. He takes his sit back next to her, making a little jest out of scooting closer.
‘I just want you to know that this is really nice’
"Pah, don’t mention it." – it’d been the last thing on his cupboard.
A silence settles in. She doesn’t fill it, prompting him to sincerely (sincerely!) ask, “are you sure you’re okay, kiddo?”